Cultural Legacy and Final Thoughts

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I tell myself it's not about comparing, but then I start wondering, what can they l?ift Are they adding more weight to their barbell than I am? And suddenly, I'm not training. Then I realize my journey is not theirs. I've earned every step, so I smile. My smile is the shape resilience takes to keep me moving. To put more smiles out into the world, Colgate has supported female athletes for over fifty years with the Colgate Women's Games, the nation's longest running indoor track and field series for girls and women. Colgate, your smile is your strength . You are listening to Hoax, a production of IHRT podcasts . Folks, no one ever sees when I swear I never was wondering Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were true, and truths that sound like lies. I'm the ghost of Danish Whartz, and I'm the evil twin of Lizzy Logan. Welcome to the show . Lizzie, we're doing a ghost story today. Spooky. It's a classic summer spook. Summer spook , you know, it's it's June when this episode's gonna come out. Okay , and why not just do summer Halloween summer? Okay, great. Summer Halloween in July is like what I feel like Disney Channel used to do. I'm excited. I feel like ghost stories are great for when you're at summer camp around the fire. Perfect. I want to bring your memory back to when we did spirit photography , an older episode where we talked about the American tradition, especially during the Civil War, of people taking photographs allegedly with ghosts. Do you recall this episode? I recall it quite well a peek behind the curtain , I listen to all of our episodes many times because not only do I give feedback on cuts, I then listen to them when they're out because I really like our show . It's a good show. It's a good show. We enjoy it. We make a product that we enjoy. I think our show is good . Yeah, so I remember spirit photography. What aspect of it is going to come into play this week? Well, I think just for context, just think about how in the middle of the ninet eenth century in America, the spiritualism movement was coming into full force. And famously there were these sisters called the Fox Sisters in America doing like rapping ghosts, not rapping like Lyndanmuel Miranda like rapping at a door like the raven . And that was in like eighteen forty eight. Gotcha. And that sort of launches the spiritualism movement in the United States . But one hundred years earlier, okay. in Okay the seventeen hundred s , there's a ghost haunting in England that sets the scene, I will argue, sets the scene for the American spiritualism movement. Okay , that's my argument. I'm sure you're gonna convince me. Is this so we're talking mid eighteen like the seventeen hundred seventeen sixties ? Okay, so if we're in the middle of the seventeen hundreds in England . Like what other spooky things are people believing in? Like when was the most recent witch trial? Okay, so when I hear like witch trials in England, I mostly associate that with King James the and first Sixth, the James I England six of Scotland . And that's like sixteen hundreds. Okay . The last witch trial in England happens in seventeen seventeen , and the last execution happened back in sixteen eighty two. Okay . So I think people believe in witches still and it's maybe not as criminalized. Yeah, and by now by this story is going to take place in the seventeen sixties. This is a more rational, enlightened as they're claiming time. I don't think people are , you know, they might believe in magic and certainly people believe in ghosts and spirits, but I also think there's a trendier move towards more rational approaches. Okay. I think rationality is very trendy. And actually the divide in the Anglican church between those people who sort of still believe in spiritual mysticism and those that don't will become a major part of this episode because the people that don't, the more conservative people will see this sort of spiritualism thing as frankly a little Catholic . Yeah, this is one of those things where like I hope this isn't like offensive to say because I know that people have like died of this argument, but so many of the squabbles between Protestants and Catholics as a Jew really are just like so silly to me where I'm like you're arguing about different brands of like the same of belief. Of the same, but of the same like thing that if you really get down to it, like I'm not trying to poo poo people's faith, but like this thing of like no , this guy talks to God. It's like, what are you talking about? And Lizzy, you will be gratified to know this episode is about an even smaller subset of disagreements between Protestants. Okay , this is about the more conservative Anglicans and the Methodist movement that emerges in England about this time. And ghosts. I had to learn a lot about Methodists, which is not a sentence I really ever thought I would say . But let me transport you back to seventeen fifty six. Okay. A man named William Kent, who's a usurr. He's like loans money to people for his job marries a woman . She's pregnant and when she's pregnant, her sister , Fanny, moves in. Okay . The woman dies in childbirth. Unfortunately, very sad. Very common. Very common. They were only married for eleven months . The poor baby dies just shortly thereafter , but William Tent falls in love with his Erstwild sister in law, Fanny. Okay, who had been living with her. And you know, if you have a type, I guess like the sisters are probably pretty similar. Yeah, and they fall in love , but the problem is by canon law, you cannot marry a sister and then also her sister. That seems really specific. Well, I mean, talk to King Henry VIII divorcing Catherine of Aragon after she had married his older brother. The whole thing. Oh right , but Fanny, after , you know, after her sister dies, there's no reason for her to stay with brother in law anymore. She goes back to her family. He goes down to London to quote unquote, like, seek advice to see if they could get married. And they keep writing back and forth. And he's like, We can't be together. And she's like, but I'm still in love with you. And wouldn't you know it? And this is a pretty bad example for all women everywhere, her being like, I still want to be with you. It works. And he's like, okay, come down to London . So he sends for her. She comes down to London and they agree that they're going to they can't legally get married, but you can't live with someone it just isn't proper so they're just like we're just gonna keep it on the deal. Yeah. And they live together as Mr. and Mrs. Kent , even though they are not married. Okay . A source that described it, I thought very aptly said, It was, quote, no crime to indulge their mutual passion for each other and it is acknowledged, that they did cohabit as man and wife. It's no crime to indulge mutual passion . I mean from my, you know , heathen perspective, this seems like a pretty victimless crim e. They make wills in each other's favor. They basically do everything they can do to make themselves married without being married. So they make wills in each other's favor and it's worth noting that according to a contemporary source, the young lady would have been a considerable gainer had she survived his fortune being a great deal more. So they make wills in each other's favor, but he's not like a gold digger. Yeah, okay. They try to find a place to live together The first place doesn't work out because it seems like it would be such a good season of Bridgerton. Right? But of course, you know, it's like you asked someone to be their mistress that's not very romantic. Well that',s like the most recent season of British history. Are you caught up on British? Caught up , but it's like then they have to go live together in the country in the country. Yeah. Okay, anyway. Well, they find a place to live together. It doesn't work out because William Kent is a userur and he loans money to his landlord and then his landlord does not pay him back and he has to sue his landlord and gets him arrested . So like, okay, we need a new place to live. Okay. And so while they are struggling to find a new place to live, it's also possible. I want to note that the landlord found out that they weren't actually married. Blackmailing . We don't have proof of that, but it's a possibility that some people bring up , but they needed a new place to live. And that's where they meet the clerk at the church of wait for it, Saint Sepulcher without Newgate . That's the name of the church. Yeah,, well sure. I don't know why you have to add the without newgate part if it doesn't have Newgate just saying Sepulcher, but this is England. Maybe it's like describing the location within Newgate is like within the town of Newgot and then the town just outside of just outside New York. Okay to Lizzie Logan being very smart. Okay sorry . So the couple meet the clerk and his name is Richard Parsons . And he says, I have a property you can live at. He had basically a house with multiple stories and offered them lodging at his residence on Cock Lane. Okay, great. And this is the point of the episode where I'd want to be like, oh, it's called Cock Lane. Isn't that funny? It's actually because blah blah blah . But it's called cock lane because historically this is where the sex workers were. You know , this is why it's called that . There's no like there's no like non sexual explanation . But at this point it is no longer where sex workers are. It is where a clerk at a church would live. Okay, cool. And he lives with his wife and two daught ers. There's only one daughter that's relevant to the story. Her name is Elizabeth. Oh my god. And she's a good name. Ten or eleven. She's sometimes known as Betty, but just for the sake of clarity, most sources refer tored her as Elizabeth, so we'll say Elizabeth. Great song by Taylor Swift. Yeah . So so far, things are going great. The mister and Mrs. Kent with air quotes are living at this house under, you know, Richard Pars Kent loans Parsons twelve guineas. Apparently some sources claim that Richard Parsons has a bit of a drinking problem and that will come up later . But the first ghost encounter will happen while William Kent goes out of town for a wedding and ask for some reason they don't want his wife who's pregnant at this time, Fanny to be alone. And so they have Elizabeth come stay with Fanny. So it's like, you know, this eleven year old girl in the pregnant woman. So she's not alone. William is off in the country . Elizabeth and Fanny are in bed together like having a slumber party . And Elizabeth hears knocking, like banging from somewhere. And she's terrified. She shouts, I don't want to be taken away . They ask misses Parsons, Elizabeth's mom, like, hey, we heard banging by the way. And they were like, well, it's just the cobbler next door . But okay, then they see some midnight cobbling. Well, that's it. And then they see the cobbler. And they were like, Hey, were you cobbling? Yeah. And he says, No And then a landlord of a nearby pub visits the house and says he saw a white figure on the stairs. And then Mr. Parsons says, That's so weird. I also saw a white figure on the stairs . Okay , so at seventeen sixty, Fanny, who is pregnant, is a few weeks away from giving birth and so they decide to move out to like a more suitable house for her to have a baby raise a kid in. I'm rooting for this couple by the way. Yeah, their love is pure in my eyes. Well, the hard part if you are rooting for them on january twenty sixth , she falls ill. Yeah . They discover she has smallpox. What? Yes twist. It's seventeen sixty. These people get smallpox . What her sister lives quote unquote, reputably in P aul Mall, which is like a fancy neighborhood, which I take to meet. There's another sister? Her sister. Fanny's. Yes, her other sister was like her sister died . Okay. She has another sister and she has a few brothers. Okay . Big family. Okay . Her living sister lives reputably on Palmall and which I take to mean is married to someone legitimately . And she's told that her sister's sick and where she lives, Fanny had not told her family where she was. Right , because they were not happy about the fact that she was running away with this man she could not marry. Right. But her sister here is where she is and is quote overjoyed to hear of her and runs to see her. And she's told that her sister is doing well, that she's making a turn for the better , but the next day she makes a turn for the worst and she dies on february second, seventeen sixty . And so her sister who had recently reconnected with her attends the funeral, and there are a few things that she's a little suspicious of . And she died pregnant . Yes. She died pregnant. Very sad. That is so sad. And again, the family , her family , her living siblings were not a fan of William Kent, her husband because he stole even though she was writing to him being like, I love you, he ir quotes stole her away to live in sin . So the sister goes to the funeral and she's surprised that the coffin doesn't have a plate on it, like a plate that is like the little engraving says the name . And she also says something is I wish that I could have gotten to see the body by the time I got to the funeral the coffin was already screwed down . Okay , is that for cleanliness reasons because smallpox is contagious? It also is probably because not you don't look good when you have if you die from smallpox. Yeah, I wouldn't think so. And the no plate on the coffin is most likely because William Kent would be prosecuted if the true nature of their relationship got out. They were like living in sin committing fraud . So a name on the coffin would be kind of confusing. Like would you say Fanny Kent or would you not? So the siblings all get upset at this man who didn't marry their sister , had their sister living in sin, dying up locked her up and knocked her up. Knocked her up, thank you. And now because they had made their wills out to each other , he gets , as I quote, their sister's fortune to the prejudice of her brothers and sisters, all who lived in perfect harmony until this unhappy affair happened. And what I'm quoting now is a basically a gossip rag from seventeen sixty counting this story. But what the siblings say is, we all get along. There's no ill will with the siblings. So why would she leave all of her money to you, who, by the way, she was not even married to. Right. And they're upset because her fortune , she had another brother who died. And so she got some of his estate, some of his inheritance . She got one hundred fifty pounds from her dead brother's estate , some land that he had owned . And then Kent, her pseudo husband , gets in a fight with the family about how much she actually stood to inherit. And they're arguing about the equivalent of about sixty five thousand pounds today, so not a fortune, but also nothing. Right . I mean, yeah, I guess I get the feeling of like you guys weren't even married that's like family money that should stay in the family. Yeah , but it's also like it's her money , she can leave it to whoever she wants. Exactly. Like I don't know, arguing over people's wills is so weird because it's like it's their death. They can do whatever they like people can do whatever they want. Money if they want, but the fan the brother the siblings are not happy because it's like their dead brother's money that's going to stranger who had their sister living in sin . And one of the brothers John Lynes Sue's Kent. Okay . So there's some like annoying family stuff going on and people make a few, the sister makes a few suspicious comments being like they said she was getting better and then she just died all of a sudden And to be fair, she was examined before the sister even arrived by a quote worthy clergyman who was like, This is deadly smallpox. She is going to die from this. Yeah, this doesn't sound super suspicious to me. No, it's not. They're scientist. There are some hurricanes. Scientists. And there's some messiness in this situation, but he doesn't sound like a murderer. He doesn't sound like a murderer, although again, not murderer, he remarries in seventeen sixty one, classic, you know. I mean, men are men You know , trust no man, but and his legal troubles continue because yet again he had, lent money to his landlord and his landlord didn't pay him back because when he had been living with Parsons , he had three guineas outstanding from alone, which he had to sue to get back . And he does , but it was like a whole annoying thing and it was the equivalent of about eight hundred pounds that they're arguing about that they have to go to court for. Great. So it settled, but it was annoying. Okay . And that's the preamble to when the real haunting starts. Okay . Okay , not so fun . Autoimmune skin conditions are actually on the rise. Cases are climbing nearly twenty percent every year . I know terrible opener for a podcast ad. But here's the thing. 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Oh my Elizabeth is hearing noises again that same banging that is not the cobbler next door, and it's the ghost of Fanny . And Parsons declares that that ghost they had seen before was actually the ghost of her sister, the first wife of Mr. Kent , who had been reaching out to warn her . So they're like , something is happening here . He reaches out to the assistant preacher at the church he works at St. Sepulchers without St. Sepulcher without Newgate and the Assistant Preacher is named John Moore , and they also bring in this other guy Thomas Broden . And the reason that I'm naming these preachers even by name and not just being like and they brought some preachers in to examine is because these are Anglican preachers, like they're preachers within the Church of England with Methodist sensibilities . And this is pretty important at the time. What is a Methodist sensibility? So Methodism is emerging as a movement with in the Anglican church at this minute and it's basically a more spiritual not revival in America we would call it like Christian revival but, it's a little less strict and rigid and orthodox than Anglicanism at this time, and it's associated with tales of the supernatural. Oh, interesting. But the story that Parsons tells that , hey, the wife the dead wife of this woman is haunting my house and the public ledger, which is like a broadsheet begin publishing accounts, people begin gossiping about whether Kent is a murderer . That's so crazy. So the source that I'm going to sort of describe the seance of how they communicate with the ghost comes from Gentleman's Magazine in January of seventeen sixty two. So apparently the group of gentlemen who are going to examine and hold a seance come to find Elizabeth in bed and they say the spirit's being at hand and they want to ask their Sitp several questions . And so we have a group together and it's declared that it's about twenty people including two to three clergymen and two black people. They use a different word for black people . And the only the only reason I actually am even saying that is as like a fun fact, I read an article that posits we have no evidence of this, but it's very likely that this man Philip Huai, who is the first African man ever ordained as a priest in the Church of England was at the Seans. Okay, go Phillip. Yeah , because he was in London living with John Moore at the time. So Robinson of Methodism. Yeah. So if there was a black man at the Seyance, people are like , it probably was him. Great, which is interesting. Just say, that is interesting. Fun, interesting fact. So this group of about twenty men, including two to three preachers , clergymen, examine the bed and bedothcsl and don't see any vis ible appearance of deceit . Elizabeth is put into bed where she says the hauntings take place and the bed begins to shake and they hear knocking and they say they're going to ask questions an answer is given by knocking or scratch ing. One knock means yes, two knocks means no, and scratching means she's upset like a cat . So they say, Were you brought to an untimely end by poison? One knock, yes . And then they say, In what was the poison administered? Beer or pearl? And pearl is like an alcoholic beverage, like Jim, I to look that up. And she said pearl I guess by yeah whichever name like one for the first answer, two for the second . Yeah. And then they say, Was it your husband who killed you? Yes , they're yeah, amazing astonishing. She's accusing Kent. Incredible. And then incredible the way this ghost is answering leading questions. Leading questions. Well, ghosts can only answer yes or no questions . Otherwise, how would you communicate? How would you pause? They ask more basic ghost questions. She says like, I was not legally married to Kent . No other persons were concerned in the poisoning . The ghost would follow Elizabeth everywhere, and then they were like, Are you pleased in answering our questions? Does it ease your mind? And she's like, Yes. Okay, great . And that this is a consensual seance. And then they also they ask the ghost if the person called carrots was able to give information about the poison. And she says, yes, and carrots is the nickname for the servant who lived with them because she had red hair . It's not her real name, but I like that her name is Carrots and that she is in the record as carrots . And so they were like carrots has more information. And then they get they go to carrots and bring her to the ghost androt Kser like , I don't know anything about this. I actually do not have any more information. And they were like, Ghost, do you have something to say about this? And ghost is speechless . They also ask the ghost, would it ease your mind if the accused confessed ? Yes . Would it ease your mind if the accused was hanged? Yes . If they kill this guy based on testimony of a ghost , well, so here 's the thing . These stories are being printed all over London. Right. This is a very popular , scandalous, gossipy story. Yeah , but I want to be clear, this is not like people in the past were stupid and every one was falling for this, because at the end of this gentleman's magazine that I was reading that like was a contemporary source about this, they said the last sentence was as the imposter will soon probably be discovered , let this short detail suffice to show the tendency of it. The whole of the nonsense would fill a magazine. So okay, like it's a funny fun, funny story. Some people seem to really believe it, but like, I think it's a mistake to be like everyone believed in ghosts. No, I don't I'm not saying that. I just know that like people can get ideas in their heads and like stir up and like a fervor and then I'm thinking the way like internet mobs can like attack people based on rumors and like it would not surprise me if someone just went out and stabbed this guy and was like justice for your wife and it was like, oh, that was based on like the testimony of a ghost. You know what I mean? And Kent, to his in his defense, is like taking this seriously. Yeah, because again, this is like his life and reputation. He goes to one of these seances with the preacher. And when the ghost says that he'll be hanged, he says, Thou art a lying spirit. Thou art not the ghost of my family , she never would have said any such thing. Yeah , like he is in this and he is upset. And he's also like a widower. Yeah. Like you're torturing this guy who's like wife and like unborn child just died of smallpox. Yeah, like this is so mean . And also, I mean, she's not in this story, but to think that he also just got married to someone else. Yeah. Grief. Yeah. Like, but I'm like, this poor third wife being like, oh and now that ghost of the dead wife is coming back accusing him of poisoning her Meanwhile, Cochlane becomes a massive tourist attraction. People wait in line. Talk to the ghost to talk to the ghost. Oh my god. People wait in line for hours to talk to the ghost and Parsons allegedly charges them to ask the ghost questions that the ghost would answer with people kind of believe. Yeah. A lot of people believe especially Methodists. Okay, it becomes sort of a she's known as scratching Fanny of Cocklane. Okay. I'm so sorry. I mean a, great series of words put together . And she sort of becomes a cause that the Methodist movement takes on as proof of the spiritual afterlife. Okay . There's a lot of distinguished guests who come , including Horace Walpole, who's like a famous person from this time, but he thinks Sherlock Holmes probably and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and who are other heavy hitters. Pete Barnum Walph says that he kind of thinks this is all methodist nonsense and he said it's a drunk parish clerk set it on foot there be a Methodist in his madness? All right, I'm really sorry. Please continue. Well, take his on this is that a drunk parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge. The Methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else. And I'm like, yes, correct. Okay . But meanwhile, there's like several requests from more professional people to intercede. Like even the Lord mayor of London is like, Hey, we need to figure something out. And Kent, the man who's being accused of murdering his wife, is like, I want to set the record straight. Yeah . And so Steven Aldrich, who's the local parish priest in Clerkenwell, who's like a bigger deal , he's more orthodox Anglican, so he's not in this Methodist nonsense. He invites a group together to invest igate investigate the ghost. The ghost. Okay, because I was like, in terms of investigating the death, wouldn't are there cops at this time? Like, why are priests in charge of all of that? They're not investigating the death yet. Okay, they're just investigating the gh ost. Yeah, okay, great. Priests are who you call for a ghost. That's who that's the ghost bust. Yeah. Anglican Anglican Anglican priests. Okay , they ain't afraid of no ghosts. And so on february first, seventeen sixty two, quote, many gentlemen eminent for their rank and character assembled for an examination. And the most famous man in this assemblage assembly is a man named Samuel Johnson. Does that name mean anything to you? Yeah, but I feel like there's like so many Samuels and so many Johnsons it almost rings too many bells. Well, big deal, he's the created the Dictionary of the English language seventeen fifty five , heard of the dictionary . I thought some guy named Webster created the dictionary, and that's why his name is on the dictionary. He gets there eventually, but John did it first. Okay. And also Johnton had a biographer named Boswell who followed him everywhere. Anyway, Johnson is a big deal at this time . He's like the intellectual heavy hitter of the mid seventeen hundreds . And in terms of ghosts , I think he's like a believer. He says undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death, all argument is against it, but all belief is for it. So that's what he believes. Okay . He's like, I know there's no evidence, but like, you kind of want to believe, right? Sure . And also this haunting is happening a few straights from his house. Okay. So he's in it. So he's like, I'd like to know what's up. I'd like to know what's up. He's very curious. Something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call Samuel Johnson? Okay, Samuel Johnson. At ten PM, this group of men meet in the bedroom with Elizabeth and they sit for an hour and hear no bangs. And then they go downstairs to talk to parsons and they're like, this is a fraud, right? And he says, No, I have no idea about anything. And the ghost earlier in one of the earlier Q and A sessions had promised to knock on the coffin containing Fanny's body and as like a token of her presence . And so basically they are like, should we go down to the vault to see the see if she's banging on the coffin? And while they're deciding, they're called back into the bedroom because there's knocks and scratches that start up. And Elizabeth says she feels the spirit like a mouse upon her back. They tell the girl to hold her hands and feet out of the bed and from then no noises. According to Samuel Johnson, who wrote about this, he says from that time, though the spirit was very solemnly required to manifest its existence by appearance, by impression on the hand or body of any present, by scratches, knocks or any other agency , no evidence of any preatternural power was exhibited . So then they tell the spirit, okay, you're done banging here, but go bang on the coffin . So at one AM they all go into the church vault to see the coffin and nothing happens . And they're like okay so that's a fraud. Yeah. And they go back to the girl like it's a lame ghost. It's not much of a ghost. They go back to Elizabeth, the young girl who again is, like eleven at this time, eleven or twelve, and they're like confess and she does not . But Samuel Johnson makes the determination. He says, It is therefore the opinion of the whole assembly that the child has some art of making or counterfeit ing particular noise and that there is no agency of any higher cause . So at this point, people are like, this is a hoax . Most like intelligent people. Okay , but they think that Elizabeth is doing it. Yeah. So it couldn't just be that like someone was in the walls. They don't know how it's happening. Okay . But also she's going, she's gone from house to house. She's done sances at a few different locations. Oh, okay. And she's the common denominator. Yes. But as they asked the ghost, they said, like, will you follow Elizabeth wherever she goes? And the ghost was like, Yep. He's like, my daughter's being haunted by the ghost of fan. Right. Okay. So most like what we would call rational people at this point agree that there's a hoax happening. There are still some people who do believe, especially like Methodists who have taken on this ghost as part of their as part of their cause as part of evidence and they claim like well her body was moved. That's why the coffin didn't didn't bang. Someone had secretly moved her body . Oh , like her body had been removed from the coffin. Oh, and that's their theory. Yeah, they're they're not citing that she was moved. They're like, oh, the only explanation is she was moved. Okay, so that's like a conspiracy. It's a conspiracy it's that thing of when you believe something, you come up with more evidence. But at this point, Moore, who is the reverend from St. Sepulchres , tells Kent like, look, I believe this ghost is a hoax. And Kent says, This is ruining my life. Yeah , write down what you know , please . At first, Moore does not want to because he still thinks that the spirit he's like, okay, I think this is a hoax, but I still think there is a spirit and I still think that the spirit's present is a reminder of the sin, the fact that you lived out of wedlock. Let the man like wedlock, people get too hung up on Wedlock, you know? I will ask you to read eventually he will make a full retraction. Okay. And this is the retraction if you would like to read it, which I find very thorough. Okay . Injustice to the person whose reputation has been attacked in a most gross manner by the pretended ghost in Cock Lane , to check the credulity of the weak , to defeat the attempts of the malicious, and to prevent further imposition on account of this absurd phenomenon . I do hereby certify that though from the several attendances on this occasion, I have not been able to point out how and in what manner these knockings and scratchings of the supposed ghost were contrived, performed , and continued , yet that I am convinced that these knockings and scratchings were the effects of some artful, wicked persons. So he's basically saying, look , every it's like when a celebrity has sent their fans on someone and then it's like guys, peace and love only when they're like bullying someone . So he's basically like guys, this is gone too far. You have to stop with Kent's reputation. Yeah. I don't know how the hoax is happening. I'm not involved, but I do think it's a hoax. Yeah, he's not taking responsibility. Well he didn't do it . Well, maybe . Oh, did he? I don't know, but I'm just saying he was like one of the first people that were like, ghost, ghost ghost . He at least could have been like taking more responsibility for how he publicized it and how he legitimized it. Yeah . Parsons at this point knows that now that Moore made the statement, now that Samuel Johnson and his committee made their statement that his back is kind of against the wall. So he allows Elizabeth to be examined a few more times at a few different houses, a few different locations . They examine her in a few different ways, but basically the long and short of it is the noises always stop when Elizabeth has her hands outside of the bed . Okay , so she's doing it with her hands. And okay, at this point, investigators are like enough is enough and they tell this twelve year old girl like okay she's in this bed, no noises are happening and they say okay well if the ghost doesn't make any noises by Sunday your father's going to be imprisoned. And like boy, lo and behold, the banging start and then maids see her concealing a small piece of wood. And she's just been banging it under the covers. It's six inches by four inches and she's been banging it again the side of the bed. What an elaborate ruse. It's a very simple plan . The maids tell the investigators . Turns out she was a twelve year old girl just doing this at the behest of her father. Kent, meanwhile, is still trying to clear his name. He literally gets a group together to go into the vault again and expose Fanny's corpse because people are still claiming that there was no knocking because her body had been secretly removed. Yeah. And they're like, Nope, there she is. Yeah . And that is actually what had prompted John Moore to be like, okay, I will make a formal statement. This has gone too far. You just like had to dig, I mean, not dig up 'cause she was in a vault, but like bring up the disinter disinter the small pox corpse of your ex wife. Ex not exactly common law wife. Common law wife Okay , not so fun fact . Autoimmune skin conditions are actually on the rise . Cases are climbing nearly twenty percent every year . I know terrible opener for a podcast ad. But here's the thing. I'm Holly Fry, and our skin exists precisely because of stats like that. Because more people than ever are living with conditions like psoriasis and hydrogen itis superativa, and most of them are doing alone, without answers, without community , without anyone to tell them what the heck is actually going on. You know, not that many people knew about it and I felt kind of alone like am I an outcast? That's where we come in. We talk doctors. 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Visit us in Palo Alto at the Stanford Shopping Center, Shrevan Company, extraordinary jewelry, and time pieces . So even with that p ublic retraction that John Moore made, he is still arrested alongside Parsons, Mrs. Parsons, Mary Fraser, and a local tradesman named Richard James, and they're charged with conspiracy , because the charges brought by William Kent basically William Kentz sues them yeah for a conspiracy to take away his life by charging him with the murder of France's lines by giving her poison whereedof she died. So William Kent the widower Widower sues them sues all the people who did the hoax for basically trying to kill him, trying to get him hanged. For making up a rumor about him being a murderer. Yes. I'm on his side. Yeah, yeah. They made up. You shouldn't be able to just accuse people of stuff. And I mean a ghost. It's a pretty clear motive. Again, he had Parsons had taken out a loan and not paid it back . And he had sued him and then he was like, well, fuck you . You and your wife were living out of wedlock. Yeah . And so he sues them. The name, if you didn't remember, Mary Fraser's one of the maids and the Richard James was like a local trademan. Carrot? No. Okay. Carrots had no involvement. Okay, good for carrots. And Carrots was Fanny's maid. Okay, good for Carrot. Richard James was like a local tradesman who had written some of the more incendiary material for the public ledger. So he's the one who was planting stories. The current press needs to take a note from this story because You know , I wasn't gonna talk about Blake lively , but you can't just make stuff up about people. You can't just make stuff up. You gotta fact check these. You gotta fact check your sources. Lizzie, how do you think the jury found? Uh , I think they probably found not guilty 'cause they were religious and didn't want to say that it's impossible that there's ghost. fifteen minutes guilty for all five. Okay , the two John Moore, the preacher and Richard James just pay five hundred and eighty eight pounds in damages to quote, like purchase their pardon and they're dismissed with a severe reprimand. So they get like a fine and a warning. There. Mrs. Parsons gets one year in prison . Okay. Mary Fraser, who's like a maid who helped out gets six months? Okay . And Parsons is sentenced to two years prison and the pillory three times. Do you know what the pillory is? Yeah, with the with the tomatoes. Well, that's the thing. Even at this point, he claims to be innocent and he's sentenced to the pillory three times. And apparently when he's in the pillory, usually people are like tomatoes, tomatoes, but allegedly the crowd treats him like very kindly and collects money for him because a lot of the crowd were still believers. Interesting. I mean, well, that's their business, but they don't make Elizabeth do anything, right? No, she's a child who was just asked to do this at the behest of her father. All right, not our fault. I you know what ? Go eighteenth century just ice system What's interesting about this case and how it existed in the popular culture of the eighteenth century is that scratching fanny became this proxy war for Anglicans and Methodists. Yeah . So Anglicans are like, as I said, like these Methodists are getting pretty Catholic over here because the Anglican Church of England had by this time had sort of fallen away from the supernatural in favor of more rationalism. And Methodists were still about folk remedies and spiritual healing and did still believe in witches . Yeah . But most like most of the literature and like the cult ured people of this time anti methodist , especially some like cartoonists. So Hogarth, who's like a famous cartoonist , makes several illustrations involving scratching Fanny and the cockling ghost that are indirect attacks on Methodist ministers ? Yeah, is it sort of like that classic like upper class lower class thing of like being dismissive of folklore and like midwives versus doctors and like oh you people with your row medical practices and listening to the spirits of the elders. We here in the upper classes have whatever, whatever. I mean, like in this case, I agree. But that's also kind of like, I think yes, and I also think it's kind of a dismissal of like the masses, the Hoi Poloi. Yeah. Because so Walpole, who is like one of the people who examined earlier, makes a note about the cockling ghost and kind of he thinks that the Methodists are sort of using it cynically. He says the Methodists were glad to have such a key to the credulity of the mob . I agree . Yeah, I mean they were just using it to get at this guy who all he did was all in love with his dead wife's sister. Well, what I think happened in simplest terms is this guy who owned the property, the landlord , didn't pay a debt back, was mad at the guy , tried to get revenge on him by inventing a ghost story, and then because it reinforced like a version of the world that Methodists wanted to believe in, not only that the spiritual afterlife is closer to us than we realize, but also like see the sin of the people living living out of wedlock that they took it and ran with it. Yeah. When it maybe got out of hand. Yeah, like, I think Parsons was just like, I want to get revenge on this guy who sued me over a debt. Yeah. And the Methodists were kind of as a movement. Like what I found interesting was , okay, so there was this guy named George Bell who was part of the Methodist movement. And then he claimed that he had reached Christian perfection and was experiencing visions and he himself had spiritual powers . And even the founder of the Methodism movement like disavowed him. But as a historian wrote with Belle, it's an example of how difficult it was to distinguish religious zeal and visionary spiritual gifts from, quote, pretending to special revelations , which is kind of exactly what this is, where it's like once you have a spiritual movement that allows that sort of woo woo freedom , there's nothing to stop just like one row guy being like, hey, I'm using this for my own ends . And I want to bring your attention. I mentioned Hogarth, who's the satirist. I want to bring your attention to a few drawings. This is a Hogarth's cartoon . That is a Methodist minister. You can see a witch dangling from him. Yeah, it's like everything in the courtroom is all spooky. He is inserting sort of a this is a Methodist minister inserting sort of a phallic object into a woman's bodice . Yeah . And the idea there is that we're associating Methodists quote sexual and religious passion , which is kind of the slur attached to them at this time. I also want to draw your attention to this figure in the corner of the drawing . Does this look familiar? Oh, it's Mary Tof. She's just giving birth to rabbits. It's a woman giving birth to rabbits. This entire picture is sort of making fun of the credulity of the masses and there is a figure here. This is the figure of the scratching fanny and the bed with interesting. I wouldn't have clocked that I do see it now. What I find very interesting is allegedly, I tried to do research are you aware of what fanny means in the UK ? A slang? It's your vagina, right? It is your vagina. In America, it's like your butt. Yeah. But in the UK it means your vagina. Yeah . That slang didn't really apparently didn't exist for like a hundred years after this